


I'll Come Back For You

by lemonsandbullshit



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding, F/M, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, I want only good things for Hunk, Short, hunk angst, platonic hunk/keith, platonic hunk/pidge, wholesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 13:46:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11556453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsandbullshit/pseuds/lemonsandbullshit
Summary: The choice to leave Shaye behind may have been the right one, but it was by no means the easy one. That night, Hunk struggles with the role he's found himself in and comes to terms with the first of many tough decisions he knows he'll have to make in his time with Voltron.





	I'll Come Back For You

As Coran navigated the pod safely into the bay, Hunk released the hatch and swung himself out, landing heavily on the metal floor. “Hunk!” Coran called after him, but he had taken off running towards the control room. There was so much work to do before he could go back, before he could finish what he had started and fulfill his promise. He needed to get started.

By the time Hunk reached the control room, Coran following close behind, Sendak had been trapped within a force field at the center of the room. Hunk stopped in the doorway, breathing heavily, and took in the state of his friends. Lance sat slumped and unconscious against Keith, who kept him propped up with a protective arm around his shoulder. Pidge and Shiro rested on the floor, their eyes on the makeshift prison. Pidge sat hugging her knees, and Hunk thought she was scared until he noticed the way her jaw was set decisively. Shiro looked towards Sendak but his eyes were glazed over as his left hand distractedly rubbed his right arm. Allura stood in the middle, feet apart and arms crossed, glaring at Sendak where he sat in his enclosure. While everybody else looked up at Hunk and Coran’s arrival, Allura’s gaze never strayed from her prisoner.

Even as his breathing slowed, Hunk’s arms still prickled with anxious adrenaline. Flying home with Coran had been terrifying and sprinting through the castle had been difficult in his armor, but Hunk’s agitation stemmed from the moments before their risky escape. He heard Shaye’s voice echo in his head, so unbelievably clear.

_Perhaps your Voltron can make it so._

He had looked up, directly into her bright eyes, and seen a happiness so pure and exhilarating that he vowed then and there to bring that—that look, that feeling, that absolute thrill—to Shaye’s eyes whenever and however he could. He was still scared of the universe, true. But it would be far less frightening if he could always come back to that curious wonder she held in her gaze.

And then she had been captured.

She had been gracelessly and effortlessly yanked from his side, the glowing rope wrapped tight around her sturdy body. Every instinct in him had told him to turn around, to scoop her up and toss her in the pod and take her far, far away. He had felt his body freeze and turn involuntarily. Her bright eyes had stood out against the dark ground where she lay. All of the amazement in them had vanished, replaced by a thorough and overwhelming fear. His heart had dropped. He’d felt the muscles in his legs tighten, poised to spring forward, when Coran’s voice had cut through to him. _No Hunk!_ Coran had called out, _We have to go!_ and Hunk had known it was true. _Make haste!_ Shaye had cried. But still he’d hesitated. His eyes had flicked wildly as his mind raced, sifting through equations in his head that would get them off the Balmera with Shaye in the pod. But when the sentries had begun to march toward him, a sleek ship touching down behind their neat rows, Hunk finally accepted his defeat. _I’ll come back for you Shaye!_ he had cried, and it was exactly on her name that his heart cracked in two. _I promise!_

Back at the castle, her eyes were burned into his mind like the afterimage of a camera flash, the scars of color standing out against the black of his eyelids. His chest ached.

Hunk, Pidge, Allura, and Coran made quick work of installing the large crystal and using the new power source to freeze Sendak. Sendak put up a fight, but with one arm severed off he tired quickly. Finally, at the sight of Pidge’s bayard and the cold, determined look in her eyes, they were able to coerce him into the hibernation pod. After Sendak was carefully locked away, Hunk started back to the control room with Coran before realizing that Pidge and Allura hadn’t followed. “Hey, you coming?” he called to them. Allura just stared at Sendak’s frozen pod. Pidge turned to Hunk, an undeniable intensity in her eyes, and called back, “I think we’re staying here for awhile.” “Okay,” Hunk replied uneasily. “Get some sleep, guys. Please.”

Arriving at the control room, Coran walked off to do more ship adjustments, leaving behind instructions to bring Lance to a healing pod to rest overnight. Shiro had offered, weakly, to carry Lance himself but the words were barely out of his mouth before Hunk shook his head, put up a hand to stop him, and scooped Lance up out of Keith’s careful hold. Hunk carried Lance all the way to the other side of the castle as Keith followed closely behind. Together, Hunk and Keith stood Lance up in the pod and Keith took a moment to gently situate Lance’s limbs to ensure that he didn’t wake up sore. As he waited patiently for Keith, Hunk thought back to the control room. Shiro had done a good job of putting on a brave face, but Hunk could clearly see the unease in his eyes and the way his left hand kept drifting anxiously over to his right, tugging at his mechanical fingers and pressing into his metal flesh. Even though Hunk himself was exhuasted, he had told Shiro to get some rest. Shiro needed it more than him. Besides, what Hunk needed now was to feel like he was contributing to his friends’ care. Leaving Shaye behind was bad enough; he _needed_ to help Lance, to help the friends that were here in front of him now, if only to feel more at peace.

Putting everybody where they needed to be demanded enough focus that Hunk’s mind hadn’t been able to return to the caves of the Balmera since his arrival at the castle. But as he finally lay down in his small bed, the pressure that had been building in his head finally burst, and the thoughts he had been holding back flooded through him. His body was drained; his eyelids drooped and his arms weighed heavily on either side of him. But still he couldn’t sleep. His mind jumped from Shaye, to her family, to Shaye, to the Balmeran people, to Shaye, to Shaye, to Shaye. _I should’ve gone back for her_ , he thought, replaying in his head the moment she had been ripped away from him mid-stride. _Why didn't I go back for her? I left her. I took off, and I left her._

As his thoughts coursed through him, he felt the urge to jump up, to lash out. The muscles in his arms twitched and tensed and he felt an acidic burn in his stomach. Breathing heavily, he willed himself to stay in his bed, to lay still and get some rest. But he couldn’t contain the rage that gathered inside him at the absolute unfairness of it all. It wasn’t fair that he’d had to leave her behind; it wasn’t fair that generations of Balmeran families were trapped as slaves for a terrorist regime; it wasn’t fair that the Galrans could take and take and take and give nothing back. A question pierced through his thoughts, cruel and taunting and harsh: _What if I never go back? What if I can’t?_

In the darkness, all he could see were Shaye’s big, bright eyes.

Hunk sat bolt upright and smashed the side of his right hand, fist clenched, into the steel wall beside him. The impact reverberated hauntingly through the metal. He crumpled as it echoed, swinging his legs to the side of the bed and placing his feet squarely on the cool floor. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw bright stars, flashing and fading in the darkness behind his closed eyelids.

“Hunk?” Keith called from the hallway a moment later, his voice thick with concern as he knocked on the door. “What was that?” Keith paused, listening. “Hunk?” he said again. “I’m coming in.” The lights flicked on as the door slid open, and Keith cautiously stepped into the room. “I heard a bang from the other side of the wall, are--” He stopped short. Hunk’s shoulders had begun to shake and Keith could see it, the uncontrollable tremor that he knew was just the beginning.

“Oh jeez,” Keith said under his breath. Hunk felt the mattress shift as Keith set himself down on Hunk’s left. “It’ll be ok,” Keith said, trying to sound as comforting as he could. “We’ll go back. These Balmerans- we’ll set them free. We’ll do it, Hunk. We have Voltron, we can do anything.” He went to place an arm around Hunk’s shoulders but found they were too broad. Settling for a hand resting in the center of Hunk’s back, he tried desperately to think of something else comforting to say. But Hunk’s quiet tears had grown into desperate sobs and Keith was at a loss.

Through the empty doorway, Keith heard the door to Pidge’s room slide open across the hall. She shuffled in drowsily and Keith shot her a pleading look. With a little sigh, she dragged her feet across the room and around to Hunk’s right side. Dropping down onto the bed, she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around her shins, then leaned into Hunk, gently pressing the side of her body into his. Keith left his hand on Hunk’s back and tentatively rested his head against Hunk’s broad shoulder.

They sat like this for a while, the three of them leaning into one another as they all came to terms with the full gravity of their situation. Hunk knew realistically that they would be able to return to the Balmera and help Shaye’s people, but he couldn’t shake the idea of what might happen to them, and to Shaye specifically, if he never did. The notion filled him with a bleak dread that snaked through his heart, even as his mind insisted he was being irrational. He couldn’t help but imagine that the Balmerans had already given up on him and were succumbing to their fates as Galran slaves forever. He pictured the family he had shared a meal with looking anxious and increasingly hopeless. He saw Shaye, crying against her brother, her eyes shut, as the image faded out of his mind.

From the moment the bomb had gone off in the control room, Keith had acted in the interest of only one thing: Lance’s safety. Seeing Lance so vulnerable and helpless had inspired a desperate sort of determination in Keith that he hadn’t known he was capable of, and it scared him to think how often Lance would be in danger because of Voltron. He knew logically that Lance and Blue could hold their own in a fight, but he had surprised himself with the impulsiveness he had acted on today. He had been trying to be more mindful of his decisions, especially in fights, but would he be able to control himself the next time Lance got hurt, or would he be as careless as he had been today? Even the idea of Lance alone in the healing pod twisted Keith’s stomach. He wanted to be near him, next to him, to make sure he woke up comfortable and safe. Keith closed his eyes and breathed deeply, rubbing small circles into Hunk’s shaking back.

Pidge had been grateful for the commotion in Hunk’s room, unable to lay down to sleep but also unable to focus long enough to do any sort of work. After she had left Allura still staring at Sendak’s pod, she had gone back to her room to rest. She had lay in her bunk for just a few minutes before abandoning the idea of sleep and instead attempting to distract herself by digging through the information stored on her laptop. But now, as she leaned into Hunk’s soft, dense arm, her mind led her back to Sendak’s cruel smile. She allowed herself a certain amount of righteousness, a small feeling of vengeance, as she thought back to cutting through his modified arm with her little bayard. But the feeling wore off quickly as images of her dad and brother rose up in her head. Work camps, Shiro had told her, and she had to hope that they were treated similarly to the way Hunk had described the Balmerans. They would be slaves, of course, but for the most part left alone. But she had seen the look in Shiro’s eyes as he watched Sendak, the way he had vacantly picked at his artificial arm, and her mind kept returning to thoughts of amputated limbs, experimental labs, her dad and brother’s skinny frames, and the ease with which you could cut through human skin. _Stop_ , she told herself, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her jaw. _Stop it._

Their heavy thoughts weighed on them as they sat, huddled together on Hunk’s small bed. Even after Hunk’s sobs slowed and his shoulders stilled, they stayed close to one another in silence. They relished the quiet, the moment of peace after the day they had just impossibly survived. Finally, Hunk broke the mutual silence with the one thought that had occurred to each of them in their short time as Voltron but that none of them had dared to vocalize.

“We’re not going to be able to save everybody, are we?” he asked quietly. Pidge didn’t say anything, unsure if it would be better to be nice or to be honest. After a few beats, Keith spoke softly. “No, Hunk. I don’t think we are.” Hunk nodded slowly and took a deep, shaky breath. Then he swung an arm around each of them, pulling them even closer. He pressed a cheek to the top of Pidge’s head, and then to the top of Keith’s.

“Thanks you guys,” Hunk said earnestly. “I needed that.”  
“No problem,” Keith answered softly.  
“Anytime,” Pidge added.

Neither of them moved to leave, still soaking in the comforting pressure of Hunk’s thick arms around their shoulders. Keith relished Hunk’s soothing scent, fresh and soft like clean towels, while Pidge let his warmth seep into her small frame. Yawning, Hunk pulled his arms back into himself and stretched them up over his head.

“Go get some sleep,” Hunk told them, his voice suddenly turning hard. “Tomorrow we free the Balmerans.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi friends so this is my first time writing a fic! it's fun but also v scary to have it out in the world like this. please lemme know what you think in the comments, I'm very open to any sort of constructive criticism. my main tumblr is also lemonsandbullshit but my voltron blog is youcantknockthatboyover so feel free to message me with any sort of reactions/advice/suggestions :))
> 
> also: apparently her name is spelled Shay?? I thought I saw somewhere that it was Shaye so just go with it because I like it better aesthetically


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